I am told on good authority that it is offensive to invite people of other religions to convert to Christianity. Thus it is offensive to say to a Jew, “Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God and so you should be baptized and become a Christian”. It is similarly offensive to say to a Muslim, “Jesus is the divine Son of God and Muhammad was not a true prophet, nor…
One is tempted to say that it takes a fair bit of either courage or foolhardiness in our culture to write in praise of virginity. But virginity is now so misunderstood and undervalued that some words need to be offered to understand it and recognize its proper value. In our present culture (it was otherwise in the Jurassic days of my youth) virginity in adults is considered comical if not downright pathological. …
There are stupider things to do than arguing with a culty fundamentalist. As the late great Jim Croce reminded us, you don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, and you don’t pull the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger. Arguing with a culty fundamentalist is, I admit, not as stupid as any of these things, but it is pretty stupid nonetheless, for it is a waste of precious…
A wise man once said, “What we believe always remains intellectually possible; it never becomes intellectually compulsive. I have an idea that when this ceases to be so, the world will be ending.” That is, in this age we walk by faith, not by sight. By God’s design and providence, the world contains no proof that could compel belief by force, nothing that would “prove” the truth of Christianity so that faith…
We continue with our study of Israel in the New Testament, including our numeration of points for ease of discussion. 6. Though the Jewish Christians (the followers of “the Way” as they were known) were initially regarded as fellow Jews by the mass of their fellow countrymen (including such groups as the Pharisees), disagreement over basic questions soon led to a parting of the ways and taking divergent trajectories. It was not…
One occasionally finds people who believe that the Old Testament is a Jewish book written for the Jews, while the New Testament is a Christian book, written for the Christians. Though this odd popular perception is wrong, one does see how some people come to hold it: the Old Testament focuses upon Israel as the people of God and as the center of God’s purposes, while the New Testament focuses upon the…
